Eddie Hearn has revealed some of the details and offered up some potential plans for the eagerly awaited Matchroom versus Queensberry Five-versus-Five showdown that was announced last month.
The event will see the two promotors face off against each other in a five-versus-five fight night in Saudi Arabia and Hearn has spoken to Boxing King Media to give an update on how the format could play out.
The event is set to place in Riyad in June and will see two weight classes selected by each promoter, with His Excellency Turki Alalshikh picking the final class of the five.
“The noise behind Matchroom v Queensberry is actually probably bigger than any other fight I’ve promoted,” Hearn said. “My call with George [Warrren] 20 minutes ago was to say next week, let’s get together in London, let’s start to put some meat on the bones around these matchups. We know the date now and the weight classes will be worked on and announced in the Fury-Usyk fight week and be huge.”
After revealing that June is being targeted for the event and how the weight classes will be selected, Hearn went into more detail on how the fighters will be selected, suggesting that a ‘transfer window’ could see new fighters signed up specially for the event.
“This is the fascinating part,” Hearn continued. “George could turn round and say 'I’m going light-heavyweight and I’m going Anthony Yarde'. It’s then down to me to find my best 175lb-er that’s willing to take on Anthony Yarde. Then I will turn round and go, '168lbs, Diego Pacheco'. And you will turn around and find your best 168lb-er and then His Excellency may turn around and go ‘heavyweights’. And George will go 'Dubois, Joyce, whoever' and I will have to use one of my heavyweights - or - and this is to be discussed with George next week, is there a transfer window? Can I go out and sneak a little big signing in? I think that's the way that we should do it.”
Hearn also put forward the idea of keeping all fighters under wraps until the fight week press conference when they would be dramatically revealed on the stage.
“So you turn up and you know the weight classes, but the fighters will be announced on the dais at the press conference,” he mused. “So they’d be a little grid and it would say light-heavyweight, super middleweight, heavyweight, whatever. George will stand up and go ‘my pick for heavyweight is…. Deontay Wilder’ and I’ll go ‘hold on a minute, you don’t even have Deontay Wilder, where have you pulled him from?!’ And I could go ‘my pick for welterweight is Conor Benn’ and he turns around and goes ‘my pick is Terence Crawford’. And I’ll go ‘what, he isn’t even a Queensberry fighter!’
“Don’t forget we’re desperate to win. It’s very friendly, but we’re dying to win! It’s going to be amazing.“
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